How to choose orchid potting media? Ramblings on orchid cultivation: the potting media chapter

Growing orchidsThe first essential rule is: ventilation and air permeability. Ventilation meansgrowing orchidsthe small environment must maintain constant air circulation; air permeability means the equipment used to plant orchids and the potting media must allow air to flow through them. This is the conclusion drawn from hundreds of years of orchid cultivation history and from several famously renowned great orchid growers, and modernorchid growingpractice has also proven this to be an irrefutable truth. Compared with the potting media of ancient orchid growers, the potting media of modern orchid growers are even more diverse and colorful. But no matter how much things change, the fundamental principle remains the same: modern potting media place even more emphasis on air permeability. However, the hard potting media used in modern orchid growing have a fatal flaw, namely the lack oforchidthe nutrients necessary for growth. Chinese orchids have already adapted to a terrestrial environment over the course of biological evolution; the fleshy root tissue of the Chinese orchids we see is very well suited to a slightly acidic soil environment. Modern factory-styleorchidcultivation basically uses hard potting media as the culture substrate, and because of the lack of nutrients, people have tried every possible way to develop various nutrient products. But no matter how they tinker with it, they ultimately cannot create an environment identical to nature.Orchidsare a type of higher plant, and they too are evolving at every moment, adapting to new environments to avoid being eliminated by nature. Growing orchids with hard potting media over a long period forces orchids to evolve in an artificial direction in order to adapt to the new environment, and therefore theorchid'sinternal tissues will more or less undergo variation to adapt to the new environment. This may perhaps be the reason why re-exported plants differ slightly from native plants in fragrance, color and form. Likewise, if re-exported plants are grown in soil for 2-30 years, perhaps they can evolve back to the native state; of course, this is only a inference and has not yet been scientifically verified. Practice has already proven that growing orchids with hard potting media has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantageous side is a high rate of new shoot production, with few black spots or scorched leaf tips. The disadvantageous side is that the pseudobulbs are often not large, and when the potting medium is changed they are prone to disease and plant collapse, and the biggest hidden danger is that it easily induces the orchid "cancer" ---- bushy top virus disease. Now, some orchid enthusiasts with relatively advanced thinking are already combining traditional and modern methods, improving traditional soil cultivation so that the soil has the granular quality of hard potting media while also retaining the various natural nutrients and trace elements, and then adding new soil-improving drugs developed by modern scientific methods, so that orchid babies grow both fast and healthy. (Zheng Haiping)